History TabletopGame / Battleship

* ExcusePlot: Assuming they have one at all, ''Battleship'' spinoff games tend to have paper-thin plots. Surface Thunder's entire plot fits onto one page of the manual, and is in no way required to play the game. Your mileage may vary as to how paper-thin you consider the plot of [[Film/{{Battleship}} the movie]].

** There is, perhaps inevitably, a version based on [[Film/{{Battleship the film]] [[RecursiveAdaptation based on the game]].

* AwesomeButImpractical: The aircraft carrier. Being five pegs long, it is the easiest ship to find, and when that happens it is only a matter of time before it is sunk.
** The Game Boy ''Radar Mission'' gives players a reason to specifically hunt out the opponent's aircraft carrier first - if it's not sunk before 15 turns are up, an aircraft gets launched from it. Said aircraft counts as an additional ship (meaning it must be hit to win), is 1x1, is NOT subject to the near miss rule, [[LuckBasedMission and is placed randomly in a spot not yet fired upon]]. It's not that uncommon to lose because the aircraft was in one of the last 5 spaces on the board.

* CriticalExistenceFailure: Damage doesn't affect a ship until it is sunk.

* JapaneseRanguage: In the Game Boy ''Navy Blue'', the [=F-4=] Phantom is misspelled as "[=F-4=] Fantom".

* MoreDakka: Variations on the standard ship theme include "A shot for every remaining ship" and "A shot until you miss" - particularly lucky players of the latter can potentially strike the enemy's entire fleet in one turn.

* OneHitPointWonder: In some versions of the game, submarines have just one hit -and you've several of them-. Good luck finding them.
* [[OneManArmy One Ship Navy]]: According to the 'plot', the player's nation in Surface Thunder has been completely reduced to a single warship: you.

* RecycledInSpace: There's a ''Franchise/StarWars'' tie-in edition, with a hexagonal space grid, computerized hit/miss notation and ships replaced by iconic Star Wars vessels (X-Wings, Star Destroyers, etc.). Other versions have also space ships, or even aircraft instead of warships.

* In one episode of ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', Robin asks Barney to play Battleship, which Barney thinks is an UnusualEuphemism for hooking up. Turns out she really does want to play a game of Battleship - and so they set up the game and start playing (and cheating).
* In the original ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'', Andy gets Battleship for his birthday. Later, Ham and Potatohead are seen playing it.

* In the original ''Film/ToyStory'', Andy gets Battleship for his birthday. Later, Ham and Potatohead are seen playing it.

* ''BatmanForever'': Riddler and Two-Face play a "cooperative" version of Battleship, with Riddler taking on the Batwing and Two-Face taking on the Batboat.

* BigBulkyBomb: The first GameBoy game ''Navy Blue'' had special weapons a player could use to cover multiple spots in one attack. Variations include firing off 2, 3, and 5 missiles into 2, 3, and 5 spots of your choice, a missile that attacks in the four corners of a 3x3 grid, the [[RecursiveAmmo Harpoon]] missile, which attacks 5 spaces of a 3x3 grid in an X pattern, and the Tomahawk missile, which covers an all 8 spaces surrounding the spot that you fired it at. These weapons were incredibly useful for finding the Submarine (which only took up one spot), and the Carrier (which took up 8 spaces in a 4x2 pattern). Destroying various ships prevented the enemy from using the very same weapons.

* FollowTheLeader: Besides the original version, there's ''a lot'' of clones of this game, physical or computer versions.

[[Film/{{Battleship}} Received a live-action film adaptation]] in 2012. [[AdaptationExpansion With aliens]] and Creator/LiamNeeson. There have been a number of video game adaptations as well, from the {{NES}} to modern [=PCs=].

* In the original ''Film/ToyStory', Andy gets Battleship for his birthday. Later, Ham and Potatohead are seen playing it.
* ''{{ComicBook/Foxtrot}}'': Jason and Marcus are seen playing Battleship, with Jason losing his last ship, then retaliating, missing but still sinking every one of Marcus' ships. We then learn they'd been playing the [NukeEm Nuclear War]] edition.

* GameShowAdaptation: Received a minigame as part of the Hasbro-produced ''Series/FamilyGameNight'' on Creator/TheHub. There's also a [[http://www.usgameshows.net/x.php?show=MoneyWords 1974 pilot]] called ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V700xV2ghGU Money Words]]'' which played a lot like this game, just with words.

** Averted by ''Battleship Galaxies'', a more complex game with miniatures that, admittedly, bears little relation to the classic game; it came with a Creator/IDWPublishing-created comic/graphic novel; clocking in at 48 pages, it expands on the story of the ''ISN Everest'' and their opponents in the game.

* RecycledInSpace: There's a ''Franchise/StarWars'' tie-in edition, with a hexagonal space grid, computerized hit/miss notation and ships replaced by iconic Star Wars vessels (X-Wings, Star Destroyers, etc.).
* RefugeInAudacity: Some of the possible ship arrangements.

** The Game Boy ''Navy Blue'' (Known as ''Radar Mission'' for international release) gives players a reason to specifically hunt out the opponent's aircraft carrier first - if it's not sunk before 15 turns are up, an aircraft gets launched from it. Said aircraft counts as an additional ship (meaning it must be hit to win), is 1x1, is NOT subject to the near miss rule, [[LuckBasedMission and is placed randomly in a spot not yet fired upon]]. It's not that uncommon to lose because the aircraft was in one of the last 5 spaces on the board.

* BigBulkyBomb: The first GameBoy game had special weapons a player could use to cover multiple spots in one attack. Variations include firing off 2, 3, and 5 missiles into 2, 3, and 5 spots of your choice, a missile that attacks in the four corners of a 3x3 grid, a missile that attacks 5 spaces of a 3x3 grid in an X pattern, and the Tomahawk missile, which covers an all 8 spaces surrounding the spot that you fired it at. These weapons were incredibly useful for finding the Submarine (which only took up one spot), and the Carrier (which took up 8 spaces in a 4x2 pattern). Destroying various ships prevented the enemy from using the very same weapons.

** The Game Boy ''Radar Mission'' gives players a reason to specifically hunt out the opponent's aircraft carrier first - if it's not sunk before 15 turns are up, an aircraft gets launched from it. Said aircraft counts as an additional ship (meaning it must be hit to win), is 1x1, is NOT subject to the near miss rule, [[LuckBasedMission and is placed randomly in a spot not yet fired upon]]. It's not that uncommon to lose because the aircraft was in one of the last 5 spaces on the board.

* SubsystemDamage: ''Super Battleship, as mentioned above, removes functionality based on where a shot lands)

* GameMod: Coming up with homebrew rules (like, for example, giving each ship a unique, single-use attack.)

* MundaneMadeAwesome: The live action adaptation. How does one make an action movie based on a simple tabletop game? Simple, ''ditch the pegs and add aliens'' (who attack by firing "pegs.")

* RecycledInSpace: There's a ''Franchise/StarWars'' tie-in edition, with a hexagonal space grid, computerized hit/miss notation and ships replaced by iconic Star Wars vessels (X-Wings, Star Destroyers etc).

* ExcusePlot: Assuming they have one at all, ''Battleship'' spinoff games tend to have paper-thin plots. Surface Thunder's entire plot fits onto one page of the manual, and in no way required to play the game. Your mileage may vary as to how paper-thin you consider the plot of [[Film/{{Battleship}} the movie]].

* AttackItsWeakPoint: In ''Super Battleship'' for the SNES, you have to manually aim your guns at enemy ships to sink them. Depending on where you hit them will impair the ship. Shooting the guns will prevent them from firing back. Shooting the aft of the ship will knock out the engines (usually the second thing you want to hit after you take out the guns.) Hitting the radar will affect weapon accuracy, the conning tower will affect how fast the ship can repair itself in the following turns (mainly useful only for the players), and hitting the armory will affect how many shots you can fire during that engagement session. This can be taken advantage of, allowing for skillful players to take out a massive battleship with a dinky little patrol boat (which will be sunk in one shot from said battleship at full power.)

This is originally a board game for two players, though it can be played with pencil-and-paper and has been adapted to computers. The classic Milton-Bradley set-up has two identical plastic half-boards, one red, one blue. Each half has two 10-by-10 sections: one flat one with peg holes where you place the ships, and a vertical section with peg holes which has the dual purpose of marking where you fire your shots and hiding where your ships are from the other player. Both grids are labeled with letters in one direction and numbers in the other, A to J and 1 to 10 respectively.